


Boot Marks Where You'd Been, Part 2

by norgbelulah



Series: Boot Marks Where You'd Been [2]
Category: Justified
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Criminals, F/M, M/M, Memory Loss, Miami, Multi, OT3, Past Abuse, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2013-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-29 06:29:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/norgbelulah/pseuds/norgbelulah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Raylan is forced to confront, not only a pair of people from his long abandoned past in Harlan, but the long forgotten memories and consequences of walking away far too soon.  Boyd and Ava aren't just more than what they seem, they're more than Raylan has any notion they could be.</p>
<p>Through the hills and the hollers and the ever present sun and sand of Miami, these three are drawn to each other, and they'll do anything to hold fast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [It Never Ends the Way We Had It Planned](https://archiveofourown.org/works/297178) by [norgbelulah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/norgbelulah/pseuds/norgbelulah). 



> Second in a three part series. Remixed from another of my fics. Basically, an AU of an AU.

It’s a quiet day in the beginning of June that Raylan’s boss in Miami lays a file down across his desk. Dan Grant takes a breath before he says, "Your friend Gio has some company from Kentucky for the summer."

Raylan pulls the file towards him, but doesn’t open it up yet. He doesn’t like the sound of this at all. "Oh yeah?"

Dan nods, like he thought maybe Raylan didn’t believe him. "Some guy named Crowder and his wife. He's a player in Harlan, or so the Lexington office says."

Something goes real still inside Raylan, he sees Dan notice and tries immediately to shrug it off. "You know I'm from there, right Dan?"

Dan grimaces, like he’s about to be real sorry he brought this to Raylan at all. "You know him?"

Raylan frowns at him, wishing right then that he hadn’t. "I sure hope it's not the Crowder I'm thinking of."

"Name's Boyd." 

"Shit."

Later, as he goes through the strangely sparse file, detailing the illegal activities Lexington can barely make stick to Boyd Crowder, something niggles at the back of Raylan's mind when he thinks of the man married. He can't put his finger on it, but it feels funny. Not quite wrong, just not exactly right, either.

He decides not to think much more about it, until he sees the woman who opens the door of Boyd Crowder’s summer home.

“Hello, Raylan,” Ava says, smiling, like he’s just coming over for cocktails, and leans in to kiss him on the mouth.

Her lips are soft, sweet like he once tried not to imagine they’d be and he can’t help but reach out for her waist. She presses up against him, but pulls her mouth away, leaving only a hint of how she really tastes, and looking up into his eyes. Her own are big and blue and full of something hidden.

“Hello,” he murmurs to her, not able to keep a little bit of confusion from his voice.

“You look like somebody ran you over, Raylan,” she says. “Come on in. I’ll fix you a drink. Love that hat, by the way.” She tips it up with a crooked finger before she turns her back to him.

He hesitates for a split second, feeling pretty wary, but steps across the threshold because he really had come to talk to her

The house they’re staying in--Ava and Boyd, he still can’t quite believe it--is a good size condo with a spacious kitchen into which Ava disappears. 

He follows her through a short hallway, trying to look casual as he checks the living room, a good size with overstuffed, pastel-colored furniture, and cranes his neck further down the hall to what looks like a bathroom and laundry room. He’d like to check upstairs, but that would reveal his suspicions a little more than he thinks is necessary.

The kitchen is shaped like a big rectangle, with large windows looking out into a garden, and a table which seats four at one end. Steel appliances next to gray marble counter-tops and an island with a mini bar decorate the other.

Ava hands him a bourbon, the bottle still uncorked on the counter is a well-aged Buffalo Trace, and pours herself one as well. She perches on a stool next to the bar and waves Raylan over to the other. 

He decides not to sit quite yet.

He looks her up and down as he takes his first sip, she’s wearing a long white dress, in the wrinkled-up kind of cotton that only looks right on people during the summer months. Her hair is pulled half back, like he remembers she’s always preferred it, and she’s made up a little more than he’d ever seen her as a girl. She’s not wearing any shoes.

She’s got a plain wedding band on her left hand and a tasteful diamond nestled next to it. The only other jewelry she’s wearing is a bracelet on her right hand, made of thick, braided chain, silver and gold, simple enough to have been purchased either at the price of the bourbon they’re drinking or five times that much.

He’s not sure how he feels about how well things seem to be going for the Crowders. Jesus, he thinks again, Ava and Boyd. He hadn’t seen that coming at all, but his thoughts sort of shy away again from exactly why.

“Sit down, Raylan,” she insists with an earnest smile. Her legs are crossed casually in front of her. She doesn’t seem to be worried that there’s a lawman at her door. 

He returns her expression with an awkward smile of his own, not far from a grimace. He pulls his jacket back to reveal the badge and gun at his hip, though he knows she’s already taken note of them. “I didn’t stop by to catch up, Ava. I’m here on behalf of the U.S. Marshall Service and the Federal Government. I assume you know we’re lookin’ into Gio.”

She smiles again and tilts her head, not phased at all. “Your mother was tellin’ anybody who’d listen about how you’d become a U.S. Marshal, before she passed.” She says this like she’s the one holding all that pride for him. “And Gio told us he had a lawman from Kentucky, bein’ an awful thorn in his side,” she adds like she’s glad.

“Us?”

Her eyebrows rise, like now he’s being thick. “Boyd an’ me.”

He laughs, well, sort of huffs it out impatiently. “You an’ Boyd. I gotta say, that’s not something I was expecting.”

Her eyes are dancing in amusement and something near excitement, but he can’t fathom why. “You surprised Boyd would marry a woman?” Her fingers are idly tracing lines in a pool of condensation on her counter.

He leans back a little, sort of surprised by the question, or at least the way she phrased it. “No,” he says immediately, “of course not.” Though, after a moment, he realizes that’s exactly it. “I just... didn’t know you two knew each other,” he recovers.

“It’s a small town, Raylan,” she says and lifts up her hand to rest under her chin. “You meet everybody after a while. We met, the first time, shortly after you left us.” 

He doesn’t say anything for minute, still trying to puzzle out what his problem is with this entire situation. And the way she said that too, like he’d abandoned them both, and only them. 

He takes off his hat, suddenly feeling hot, though he knows the AC’s blowing. She watches him set it carefully on the table. “I thought Marshals were fugitive hunters,” she says finally. “You think we got one here? You bein’ on official business and all.”

Raylan blinks, clearing his head of muddy questions, and sets it back to the business at hand. “Yeah, fugitives, and property seizure, witness protection--”

She grins and leans forward, eyes wide, whispering, “You think we saw someone commit a crime?”

Raylan’s mouth twists. “You know, when you were sittin’ on my mama’s porch drinkin’ kool-aid and sneaking the last of the pecan rolls, I don’t remember you bein’ so...” 

As he struggles to formulate a polite way to continue, she offers, “Much like Boyd?”

“Could say that, I suppose, ‘stead of describin’ him.”

“I guess it’s just something you pick up, bein’ married to someone comin’ up on ten years. Now, what is it you think we know, Raylan?”

He frowns at her. “Could you cut it with the ‘we,’ Ava? Talkin’ like that, you’re as good as sayin’ you know exactly what it is he’s got goin’ on here. Might as well plead accessory now.”

Her eyes flash, and she pulls her body up straighter. Raylan knows his own eyes widen, as her voice turns low, and a shade away from deadly. “What makes you think I don’t, Marshal? And I’ll have you know, nobody has anything on my husband, won’t blow off with some huffin’ and puffin’ from our _team of attorneys_.”

He squints at her, setting his hand on his sidearm, just out of instinct. “How deep are you in, Ava? Christ.”

Her eyes are hard as steel. “Sure, I’m just a girl from the holler, Raylan. But I ain’t no 19th century throwback. I do not sit at home and wait. I do not close my eyes and my ears for fear of snitchin’ on matters beyond my goddamn capacity. Now, did you want to talk to me about something?”

Raylan likes to think he doesn’t live in the past, but he’s feeling a little sheepish at how easily he was led to underestimate this woman. He decides just to tell her, straight up. If his memory of Boyd serves, they would both probably prefer he be as direct as possible, and they’d be smart enough to realize if he wasn’t.

“Gio operates in fugitives on occasion. Moving high rollers in and out of the country. It’s a specialized thing he only does for people he likes and people who can pay. There’s a trial comin’ up soon, for a known associate. We think they’re gonna move on it.”

“And you’re askin’ if we know anything about that?” Ava asks coolly.

Raylan smiles, loving the way she looks, sitting there square-shouldered and sharp-eyed. “Not yet. I just wanted you to know we know. Sort of a warning, I suppose. Or a courtesy, if you’d rather.”

“I believe I would,” Ava says and the way she says this, leaning forward and giving him a flirtatious eye, that--unless Raylan is way off the map--speaks volumes of other things she’d rather.

She’s looking at him still, and he’s trying to school his features into something more intrigued than surprised when he hears the front door open.

Ava’s lips stretch into a beautiful grin, all white teeth and excitement. 

“Ava, who’s old Towncar is that outside?” Raylan’s heart gives one giant thud in his chest when he hears Boyd Crowder’s voice for the first time in nearly fifteen years, then stills to frozen anticipation of hearing it again.

For some reason he’s staring at the ring on Ava’s hand, when she calls, “It’s Raylan’s,” again, like he comes over all the time. 

Raylan hears Boyd’s footfalls stop dead, probably about three or four paces from the door. He can’t decide if Boyd is thinking of pulling a weapon, or just that surprised Raylan would be there. 

Ava gets up and heads over to one of the cabinets, pulling out a third glass. “Come in and have a drink with us, baby,” she says.

Raylan picks up his hat and puts it on before Boyd’s steps resume. He puts his hand on his hip, right near his sidearm and doesn’t think about why. 

He locks eyes with Boyd as he turns the corner.

He looks so different, tanned skin from the beach or the golf course, not sun-deprived from the mine, thinning hair, cut shorter than Raylan remembers he used to favor it. He’s wearing a crisp blue button-down shirt, cut slimmer than is usually comfortable in the heat of Miami, though he doesn’t seem to be sweating, and tucked into a similarly slim pair of brown dockers. He’s got a wedding ring and only that on his fingers and an expensive-looking watch on his wrist.

Boyd smiles at Raylan, his I’m-so-glad-to-see-you grin, and he looks exactly the same. 

Raylan’s hand falls from his hip and he’s still not thinking about why.

Boyd steps forward and says, “Well, look at you. Suit. A necktie. Lookin’ good, Raylan. Lookin’ like a lawman. And the hat. Jesus.” Boyd’s smile could light up the black, if that’s where they still were.

Raylan smiles back and takes his hand, gripping it firm, feeling long fingers slide across his own. They hold on just long enough. “I like your watch,” he tells Boyd.

“A gift from my lovely wife,” Boyd replies sheepishly and pulls Ava to him. They look good together. All cool colors and warm eyes. She looks up at him, when his arm slings around her waist and Raylan feels something stir in him. He looks away.

“How you like Miami so far?” Raylan asks, just out of politeness.

Boyd smile turns strained. “Just as advertised,” he replies. “Though I find I’m missing the hills already. This land. It’s much too flat for my taste.”

“Mine too,” Ava puts in and Raylan can’t tell if she’s just saying so for Boyd or if she really agrees.

“Takes some getting used to,” Raylan says. “The wetlands can be kinda pretty. ‘Specially come sunset.”

“Over the water, too,” Ava supplies. “We seen some spectacular sunsets, ain’t we, Boyd?”

He rubs his hand up and down her bare arm and Raylan imagines he can see the shiver of gooseflesh raise up on them. “You’re talkin’ like you wanna move us down here for good, baby. I dunno how I feel about that.” There’s a twinkle in Boyd’s eye.

Ava shakes her head, like she doesn’t know he’s kidding. “Not for good,” she says, looking at Raylan. “Just for a while.”

Raylan drains his drink, maybe a little fast, and sets it down on the counter. “You know, it was real great to see you two, but I should probably be getting back to the office. Not everybody’s on vacation in this town.” He feels his lips quirk at Boyd’s knowing expression.

“But you ain’t said what brought you here, Raylan,” Boyd protests. “I have to admit, I’m mighty curious.”

“You can ask Ava, ‘bout that,” Raylan returns. “I’m sure she can’t wait to tell you.”

He moves out of there maybe a little faster than is strictly polite.

As he walks out the door, Boyd calls from the threshold, “I’ll see you soon, Raylan.”

He wonders why it doesn’t seem as threatening as it should.

 

Raylan gets sidetracked by an actual fugitive over the next few days, and it’s early on a Friday morning that he finally gets the time to make the particular phone call he’s been waiting to make.

“Chief Deputy Art Mullen,” Art answers the phone with the same tone he used to instruct the boys back at Glynco, a little bit of impatience and an inch away from a sigh.

“Bad morning, Art?” Raylan can’t help but ask.

“Raylan Givens, as I live and breathe,” Art replies. “How’s Miami treatin’ you? Last I talked to Dan he said he moved you over to fugitives, and you blossomed like a late daisy.”

“Did he?” Raylan looks over at Dan across the office, who catches his eye and gives him a weird questioning look.

“That, and he’s lost count of how many times you toed the line with procedure. But that’s old news, far as I’m concerned. What you got yourself mixed up in now?”

“What can you tell me about Boyd Crowder?”

“Well, shit, Raylan, I’ve been meaning to call you about that asshole these past few months, since I heard he’s from around where you grew up. Do you know him?”

Raylan pauses for a second before he answers, and prays Art doesn’t notice. “I did. We dug coal together when we were nineteen. We weren’t buddies,” Raylan hedges out the lie and thinks it sounds convincing. “But when you work a deep mine with a man, you get to know him pretty well. He worked the powder, was workin’ it when I left Harlan. I was hopin’ you could tell me more about what he’s been up to lately.”

“You got a line on him? Or are you looking to catch up?” Raylan knows Art’s kidding, but he licks his lips nervously anyway. He really doesn’t want it out how close his ties to Boyd had been.

“He’s in Miami. He’s had some contact with Gio, our resident drug lord and sometime fugitive trafficker. I’ve been keepin’ an eye, when I get the chance, on Gio’s associates. I wanna make sure we don’t have some kind of drug kingpin underground railroad pop up in any other districts, riding themselves north.”

Art snorts. “Yeah, we’d have headquarters with their panties all up in a twist over that. You got his file in front of you?”

“Yeah. Some stuff sent over from FBI and ATF, as well. Looks like, he went into the Army, maybe got tied up in some white supremacy shit for a hot second.” Raylan says, making himself speak as though it isn’t his good friend Boyd they’re discussing.

“He quit that right before he got married, seemed to settle down for a few years then, got himself off the radar. We’re assuming he did some quiet work for his Daddy’s organization, or just went legit. Still had his name as employee on the mine records too, paid his taxes and everything.”

Raylan smiles, thinking it must have been Ava who set Boyd straight on that one. He imagines her refusing to marry him with a shaved head and black marks inked on his skin.

“Then, maybe five, six years ago, he pops up again. Seems he purchased a few pawn shops in the southeastern counties, Harlan, Corbin, Cumberland, and we can’t say for sure, but he’s got to be running them like little laundromats for stolen cash, pushing drugs through the back door out to clinics in the sticks, and moving a lot more than they sell up through to Cinci and West Virginia.”

“Art,” Raylan interrupts. “I don’t see any of that in the file.” He’s paged through it more times than he can count. Looking long at a zoomed in photograph of Boyd stepping out of an SUV in the winter time, dark coat cut trim and double breasted, one hand in his pocket.

“Well, you wouldn’t. He’s got his boys trained well,” Art explains, an edge of frustration riding each word. “Anybody who’s seen to have a link to him denies it, pleads guilty and does his time without protest. We got a stack of files a mile high up here on boys who can’t wait to confess, never ask for a lawyer, and swear to Almighty Jesus they acted alone.”

“Christ,” Raylan breathes. You’d have to have a real good benefit system to get men to take falls like that, or you’d have to be ruthless enough to scare the shit out of them. Raylan’s fingers are twitching at the side of the file he’s holding. He hates this.

“The drugs never stop moving long enough for us to pin down, and the DEA can’t get a line on any of his lieutenants. He’s spread his influence on over here to Lexington and further. A year ago, a bunch of Dixie mafia thugs in Frankfort were hit all at the same time and ever since things have been real quiet and real smooth up here.”

“You think he’s lookin’ to move in on Gio?” Raylan asks the question as his cell phone receives a text from the rookie he asked to keep eyes on Boyd. _At cafe. With wife and Gio._ Followed by an address.

“Nah, if he’s down in Miami it’s probably to increase his supply. He’s got ties on the panhandle, we think that’s where he gets most of his oxy. Runs some guns too. That, or they just end up in Harlan by magic, seeing as no one takes a shit down there now without the Crowders’ giving the okay, and skimming some off the top.”

“Shit,” Raylan says as he slips on his badge and gun.

“You can say that again, Raylan.” Art sounds tired and it makes Raylan feel bad. This is a serious problem for the office up there. A problem with no easy solution.

“I just might, Art, but for right now I gotta go.” Dan is looking over at Raylan like he’s got some things to talk to him about, so his feet are more than ready to get him out that door.

“Well, nice talkin’ to ya,” Art says. “Let me know if there’s anything else you want from us up here. And do tell me if anything moves on this down where you are.”

“Sure thing,” Raylan promises and sets the phone down in its cradle. He’s out the door before Dan can get a word in.

 

He calls Helen from the car on his way to the cafe.

“Raylan, what a surprise,” she answers on the fifth ring. 

Raylan hears Arlo yelling something in the background. He winces, for some reason the sound grating more on him than usual. He forces his voice to be calm, like it hadn’t bothered him. “You know, that would have worked better if you actually sounded surprised, Helen.” 

“Well, sue me, darlin’, if I already know you got some of our old neighbors in your backyard this summer. Doesn’t help you only call when you need to know somethin’, ‘stead of askin’ on how we’re all doin’ up here.” He can tell she’s smiling just from the way her voice sounds.

“Would it help at all if I said I was sorry I ain’t called in so long?” 

“Only ‘cause I know you mean it, honey. Though I really can’t say how I’m gonna be able to help you out here.” 

“I just heard some stuff from Lexington a few minutes ago, I was hopin’ you could... corroborate.” 

He hears a soft sigh before she answers, “I ain’t pointin’ no fingers, Raylan.” 

“I ain’t askin’ you to, Helen. Anyway, what, you workin’ for ‘em?” 

Raylan pulls up on the curb, right across the street from the cafe. They’re eating outside. Just talking, not smiling a lot, as if they aren’t quite friends. Seems like a cordial meeting, but still very business like. They’re not eating much either, just salads, and they’re nearly done.

Ava is wearing a colorful skirt with a cream-colored linen jacket and tall-heeled sandals. Boyd is wearing something very similar to how Raylan had last seen him and still not sweating a drop, at least so far as he can tell from the distance.

Helen laughs over the line as Raylan parks his car. “Jesus, Raylan, you know me. Of course I ain’t. I get by with the rent from my place just fine. But damn near everyone else in this town gets a cut of what that boy pulls in, and they’re glad of it.” 

Raylan wonders fleetingly how much of a cut Arlo is entitled to, and dismisses the idea of asking. He can’t know shit like that. He has to keep his nose out, if he wants to keep his reputation and his hands clean.

“Things ain’t never been half so good here as they are now that Boyd’s been takin’ things off his daddy’s hands,” Helen says. 

“What does the big man think about that?” Raylan looks at Boyd as he asks, noting the predatory nature of his smile for Gio, the way it softens when he glances at his wife. 

Boyd Crowder looks nothing like his daddy, who, even when he was rolling in it, never picked up a hint of class. He would have called it affectation, thought it weak. Boyd must have realized what a strength it is to change yourself into what others expect to see, and then prove them wrong when they’re staring down a barrel.

The way Ava leans herself closer to Gio when she laughs at something he’s said makes Raylan think they discovered that knowledge together.

“Can’t say no to these kind of results,” Helen tells him. “Bowman disappeared with some skinheads, I think down to your neck of the woods, a few years back. But nobody from the old order is complaining now that all this money’s comin’ through. And Ava, that woman’s smart as a whip. She keeps an eye out for the working girls and they love her for it. No one else ever has.” 

“What about the marriage?” He asks, trying for casual. Gio is leaving the table, settling his part of the bill. “Any troubles there?” 

“Why are you asking, Raylan?” There’s too much knowledge in Helen’s tone for Raylan’s comfort. 

“Just, some kind of vibe I got from Ava, I guess. I’m only curious, Helen, shit, I swear I can just see your face right now.” 

He watches Boyd lean in close to Ava, whispering something in her ear. She smiles like it just must be something dirty and her hand slides clandestinely up his arm, twisting up his forearm and around his elbow. He reaches for her knee, but she pulls away, looking around like someone might see, and still smiling.

“Raylan, I have never seen a couple so happily married as Boyd and Ava Crowder, not in all my life, all right? There’s no trouble there unless it’s buried miles down. You be careful about them, honey. They’re smarter than you.” 

“Thanks, Helen,” Raylan laughs, believing her. 

“And call more often,” she orders before hanging up.

Boyd and Ava leave as Raylan snaps his phone shut. He looks at them and wonders, but just what, he isn’t quite sure.

He’s left with an ache in his head, right behind his eyes, and in the hollow spaces that he’s usually able to ignore.

 

He has the rookie go on detail every once in a while, and he hears reports of Boyd meeting Gio a few times, of Boyd and Ava walking down the beach, going out to dinner. He doesn’t follow up on any of them until he gets word that Boyd’s gone somewhere alone. Up for a long drive into the border wetlands, where the fishing’s good.

Raylan tells himself he just wants to talk. He wants to suss out Boyd’s intentions. He wants it badly enough he’s going to go, despite how stupid an endeavor he already knows it is.  
He follows Boyd to a semi-deserted pier and parks a car’s width away from Boyd’s vehicle. They get out at the same time.

“You goin’ fishin’, Boyd?” Raylan asks, like he’s actually interested. It’s a nice day, sunny, but not too warm. The breeze from the water is cool and all the three fishermen out along the pier are silent.

Boyd smiles. “Thought I might. Then I realized, I forgot my rod and tackle box. Must have slipped my mind.” He walks around the bed of his truck and crosses his arms as he leans against his truck at Raylan.

Raylan finds himself smirking. “If you owned anything of the sort, you mean.”

“That I do,” he returns. “Kept seein’ your man, or boy more like, but I haven’t seen you in a while. I thought you might be interested in a drive out here. So we can talk.”

Raylan knew Boyd was this smart. Had always known it, back in Harlan, and that he was wasted in the mine and workin’ for his Daddy. But this. This cat and mouse thing. This is what Boyd Crowder had been born to do.

Raylan looks at the vehicle Boyd is leaning against. It’s a big, shiny, red F-150. New, within the past two years, not extravagant, for a man of Boyd’s supposed means, and useful at least. But it’s certainly bigger and better than anything they’d ever have driven as boys.

“That’s a nice truck,” Raylan says, wondering if he’ll show that slightly strained smile he did when Raylan had singled out his watch. Boyd would be able to understand the need for keeping up these kind of appearances, but the way his Daddy had raised him leaves Raylan wondering how comfortable he is with it all.

Disappointingly, Boyd lets it slide right off his back. “Why thank you, Raylan. Gio keeps tellin’ me to get a convertible for down here. Says no one drives a truck down the strip.”

Raylan snorts. “You in the habit of listening to what Gio says?”

“Still got the truck, don’t I?” Boyd asks with a smile. “Come on now, Raylan. Give me some credit. I really ain’t that different than when we were nineteen. I know you ain’t either.” The way Boyd’s smiling at him, still, is churning up something strange, low in Raylan’s belly. He doesn’t like it. It’s making his heart beat faster, and now he can’t wait to get away.

He smiles back at Boyd, but his eyes keep sliding off the man’s face, like he’s too bright to look at for long. Boyd tilts his head every so often, as if to keep Raylan’s eyes on him longer. His hand keeps reaching out every once in awhile like he wants to touch him. Raylan’s holding himself very still.

“Raylan,” Boyd says quietly and Raylan nearly jumps. Something about his tone. He knows Boyd’s trying for friendly, trying to strike up something long dead, but it’s not putting him at ease, nowhere near it. “We can talk about this. You don’t have to--”

His thoughts skitter across a hazy memory, of Arlo yelling something and watching Boyd’s back as he runs across the drive and down the hill. Raylan standing there, waiting for a blow. There were a lot of nights like that, but as he thinks more about it, never one when Boyd was there. 

Raylan blinks it away and makes himself give Boyd a hard stare.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Raylan cuts him off. 

He won’t apologize for leaving, if that’s what Boyd wants him to do. And in his mind, Boyd’s never done anything worth asking forgiveness, besides taking their daddies’ path to a life of crime, and dragging Ava along with him. Though, that was years after Raylan left, and nothing for which he could rightfully expect an apology.

“Fine,” Boyd’s expression becomes closed, tight. “What brought you here, then, Raylan? What else could you have to say that necessitated we be alone?” 

Raylan works his jaw for a moment, thinking for a second on how much he’d been indulging in the habit lately. He supposes Boyd just brings that out in him. “I really don’t give two shits about what deal you’re making for Gio’s drugs, Boyd.”

Boyd smiles. “Well that’s good to know, Raylan. It’s a real load off my mind, now that I know you ain’t gonna step into my crossfire. Should matters come to such a head.”

“Well, should you pull out a gun within my sights, Boyd, I am gonna have to take it off you or put you down, in some fashion or other. But, I think you’re smarter than that. You’ll get what you want without scattering around any bullets. You wouldn’t have brought Ava if you thought this would be dangerous.”

Boyd inclines his head, conceding the point.

“I do care if you involve yourself at all in Gio’s fugitive ring. I have one job in this district and it’s making sure prisoners get into and damn well stay in prison, Boyd. I take that job seriously, and I will not let you screw it up for me.” Raylan’s hands come to rest on his hips and something strange shows itself in Boyd’s eyes, twisting things up even more in Raylan’s stomach.

“I ain’t here for no fugitives, Raylan. Your friends in Lexington must have told you that.”

“I know what you’re here for. What I don’t know, is what Gio wants in return.”

“Usually there’s a cash exchange involved in these kinds of dealings,” Boyd says with a superior smile. “Thought you would have caught on to that by now, Deputy U.S. Marshal.”

Raylan shakes his head. “Not if there’s extra risk. Not at the beginning of a business relationship. I know Gio. He’ll ask you for a favor.”

Boyd’s mouth takes a speedy turn down. “Will he?” he asks in a low voice, like nothing of the sort has come up yet.

“Think I’d lie?” Raylan doesn’t mean to put out the challenge he hears in his voice.

Boyd’s eyes crack to his, meeting them hard and certain. “No.”

Raylan doesn’t know if he’s so sure because of what once laid between them, or if he just trusts in Raylan’s commitment to his profession. He doesn’t like not knowing. He needs to get out of there.

Raylan turns to his car and he hears Boyd shift, like he’s surprised Raylan would leave now that he’s said his piece. 

“Raylan,” Boyd says to his back, something loose and desperate creeping into his voice. “You’re gonna have to help me understand--”

Raylan turns to him and clings harder to the door when he sees the expression on Boyd’s face, like he doesn’t want him to go. It’s the way he looked the last time they’d spoken in Harlan. Raylan feels a wave of emotion he can’t quite discern threaten to overwhelm him at the memory. He forces himself to speak. “I’m sorry, okay? About that last day. At the mine. I should have said goodbye. I shouldn’t have--” 

But he stops, unsure of exactly what he really should have done. He’s left uncertain somehow of what he actually did do that feels so wrong, just that this unease seems to be caught up in that memory, how that day his head had been pounding and he couldn’t think straight and he felt so scared.

“I wasn’t feeling well,” he says for some reason. “I didn’t do it right.”

Confusion clouds Boyd’s features, wrinkling them up, creasing his brow as he frowns. “Raylan,” he begins, the name sounding so lost on his lips.

But Raylan can’t hear it, he just can’t. So he climbs into his car and drives away.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raylan tries to stay away from Ava and Boyd and it doesn't work.

Raylan vows to stay away from them unless he hears they’re meeting with any of Gio’s other associates, any of his lieutenants. The summer is a long one, but Raylan can wait it out.

Of course, he doesn’t count on Ava’s little Jeep becoming collateral damage in an unrelated case just a few short weeks later.

The Diaz brothers, fresh out of Miami-Dade Correctional, come guns blazing into a bank in the shopping district Downtown and come out with bullets flying.

For once, the S.W.A.T team is worth a damn and the solution is resolved without anyone except the perpetrators getting injured. Raylan is called to the scene from where he’d been trying to catch a lead on them only blocks away.

He’s talking things over with another fugitives Marshal, a lovely woman named Karen, when he hears a familiar voice raise above all the others in the vicinity, “No, sir, _you_ don’t understand. That’s my goddamn car.”

He turns to see Ava fighting with the officer at the barriers along the sidewalk. She’s wearing a white dress, something short and tight, with clean lines and no frills, tall heels, as usual. She’s got shopping bags clutched in furious hands.

Karen catches him staring. “That’s a beautiful woman,” she says. Raylan and Karen have a short history that she loves to bring up every once in awhile.

He deigns to glare at her and her funny little smirk and says, “I know her,” before walking towards Ava.

“Raylan,” she says his name like he’s saved her and he smiles. “Do you know what happened? Damn, just look at my car.” She waves across the street at a little green Jeep, not so new as Boyd’s truck, but fairly high end, and it’s got a line of bullet holes across the driver’s side door.

“Parolees, on a spree of some kind,” Raylan says. “I hope you have insurance.”

Ava smiles now, and holds herself straighter. “We’re not stupid, Raylan.”

“Oh, I know,” he says and looks at her with a careful eye. He steps forward and dips his hand into one of her bags before she can step away. It’s one of those big ones, with the ribbons for handles, but all she’s got in it is a thin shirt with little spindly sleeves. The other bags look just as light.

She steps back and glares at him, drawing all the bags onto one arm and crossing her arms in front of her.

“Didn’t find anything you like?” he asks.

Ava taps her heel and replies, “Raylan, if the world were the way that I wanted it, I could walk barefoot in the street and never wear anything but the sundresses my Gran sewed me for my honeymoon. But it is not that way, and there are ways I am expected to look and things I am expected to do with my time. I’d appreciate it if I didn’t have to take your shit on top of all that insult.”

He smiles at her and raises his hands in surrender. “Ava, I’m sorry,” he says, really feeling it and wondering that this woman could be so good at taking him down a peg. “The city will have to tow the vehicle, but let me give you a ride. I’ll take your information and let you know where the impound is.”

She huffs like she’s still mad at him but says, “That would be great, Raylan.”

Karen gives them a look as he walks Ava through the barrier and over to his car. He takes her bags and throws them in his trunk and, as Ava climbs in, he goes back over to Karen. “It’s just clean up now, right? You got this?”

Karen looks over at Ava waiting. “You know what you’re doing there?” 

“It’s just a ride, Karen,” he says impatiently, drawing his hand up to the bridge of his nose.

“You think I don’t know who she is?” Karen’s voice is tinged with disapproval. They’re zipping up the body bags behind her.

“I really don’t care, actually,” Raylan snaps back. “I’m going to give her a ride home because her car got shot up and I’ve known her since she was in pigtails. Frown all you want, Karen, but will you get this for me?”

Karen looks at him consideringly for a long moment, then flashes him a smile, wicked and knowing, “You must be off your game, Raylan. You’re easier to mess with than usual.”

“Jesus,” he swears and stalks away.

“Everything okay?” Ava asks when he gets in the car. She’s taken off her shoes and has them up on the dash, knees crossed, and rubbing what must be sore toes.

“Fine,” he says, though he knows it doesn’t sound like it.

She’s tanner now than when he first met her again those weeks ago and he both does and does not want her smooth long legs on his dash. His knuckles are white on the steering wheel and he sees Ava glance at them. He forces himself to relax, breathing out a muted sigh and looking straight ahead at the road.

She pulls her legs down a moment later and asks what they’ll do with her car. 

They talk about that for the rest of the drive. There’s a mile of bureaucracy that she’s going to have to go through to get her car back, not to mention waiting for the crime scene techs to pull the bullets out.

She’s understandably pissed about it and Raylan’s starting to feel bad, as if he were the one who damaged the vehicle.

So, he smiles at her, as they pull into the drive at their condo and says, “Guess it’s pretty hard, avoiding all the gunfire, when you’re a girl from the holler.”

She laughs, bright and surprised, and says in a flirty voice, “Whoo boy, ain’t that the truth. That shit just follows me around. Wherever I go, it’s raining bullets.”

He can’t think of anything to say to that that wouldn’t be ill luck or bad taste, so he just smiles wider and she sits and looks at him for a second before saying, “Come in for a drink, Raylan.” 

It’s not really a request and maybe that’s why he goes.

Ava walks into the house barefoot, shoes dangling from straps in her hand and Raylan gets her bags. He drops them at the door and she’s pouring him a drink when he comes into the kitchen. As she hands it to him she says, “You look tired, Raylan.”

He knocks it back without thinking, as if he’s on auto-pilot. “You two,” he says without meaning to. “You’re exhausting.”

She tilts her head like she doesn’t understand him. Then she smiles, as if coming to a decision, and replies softly, “But we haven’t even done anything exhausting yet.”

He’s the one that moves first, he’s almost sure of it. He’s the one who steps forward, who pushes her back and up onto the counter. 

Their lips come together forcefully, each of them breathing deep. He presses himself up close between her legs, which she spreads for him, hiking her tight skirt up fast, like she’s been waiting all year.

She knocks his hat off as her arms come around his neck, but she draws them back down and then up again, pushing her splayed fingers through his hair, messing it up right even as her lips are still moving against his. She tastes warm and almost tangy, not sweet, like she did the first time.

“Raylan,” she says into his lips, like she can’t believe it’s him. He’s starting to get real hard, pressed so far up against her, but she pulls back and looks up into his eyes. His hands hover at her waist, though they’re itching to travel further down.

She smiles at him, again something like wonder in her eyes. “I had a crush on you from the time I was twelve years old.” 

Raylan grins, realizing belatedly what exactly this is. He draws a circle with his right hand at her hip and she squirms under his attentions. “You were too young,” he says softly. 

“I was sixteen when you left,” she replies indignantly. 

He shakes his head, thinking it was still too young. But Boyd and he, they’re of an age, and it didn’t stop him from marrying her. He wonders how long they waited. When they knew.

He thinks of Boyd looking at him across that empty parking lot, of Boyd’s smile in this kitchen when he mentioned Raylan’s hat, of his eyes when Raylan’s hands fell to his hips. He kisses Ava again, pushing it aside, like the slip of underwear between his fingers and her slick pussy. She breathes a little, “ah,” sound into his mouth and twists her fingers through his hair.

He notices she hasn’t taken off her wedding ring, as he’s seen a woman do once before, as he imagined Winona must have done when she screwed the real estate agent. He wonders if that means Ava doesn’t believe she’s betraying the vows supposedly symbolized by that ring, or if she just never gave a shit about them at all.

He wonders what kind of woman he has in his arms, and is surprised by how little he cares.

He tries to stop himself from thinking of Boyd and can’t. He thinks of Boyd when they were young, they way he’d laugh, so low you almost couldn’t hear, and the way he’d look at Raylan, like his were the only eyes in the room. He frowns into Ava kiss, moves his mouth away, and she trails her lips across his cheek and neck, sighing like he’s already made her come. 

He’s tired of this shit. He doesn’t want to think about it anymore. He turns his mouth back and kisses Ava harder.

She goes for his belt, but hasn’t gotten very far when Raylan hears the door open.

“Oh,” Ava breathes, and pulls away from him, not quite as quickly as he pulls back from her. And she doesn’t let out the curse he was expecting.

Raylan’s not quite sure what to do, seeing as Ava’s hands are still on him, holding tight on his belt, inches away from his very hard cock, but Boyd is sure as hell walking down the hall and towards the kitchen.

It’s late in the day, and Raylan can’t even believe he hadn’t considered the possibility that Boyd might be coming back while he and Ava were together. He looks at her, seriously contemplating asking just what the hell she was thinking, but her eyes are fixed on the door, and she doesn’t look upset exactly. Raylan doesn’t understand why she hasn’t pushed him away.

Raylan makes himself watch Boyd walk through that doorway. He doesn’t take his hands off Ava. He won’t back off from this shit now that he’s sitting in it, he’s never been that kind of man.

Boyd’s eyes travel from Raylan, and his unbuckled belt, to Raylan’s hands, to Ava’s eyes, riveted to his. Her foot moves slowly up his leg, shifting the fabric of his jeans, and then back down. Raylan knows he is telegraphing the level of disturbed to which he’s just sunk. Ava’s husband’s eyes follow the motion of her foot.

Then, Boyd smiles at them, he fucking smiles, and says to Ava, “I didn’t realize you were gonna move so fast on him, baby.” 

Raylan doesn’t really have time to react before she answers, her fingers lacing themselves up with his, “Neither did I. This sorta just happened.”

He clings to her, pulling their intertwined hands into her lap because he’s a little bit worried he’s going to pass out.

Ava’s hands let go of his fingers and find either side of his face. She tilts her head to look into his down-turned eyes. “Raylan, honey, are you okay?”

Raylan groans and thinks again about pulling away, but he’s still not too sure of his legs. 

“You didn’t tell him I was amenable?” Boyd says, and there’s a smile in his voice. Raylan doesn’t even know what that means. 

“I thought he knew. Wasn’t that what you talked about up at that pier?” He hears the worry in Ava’s tone, it’s actually comforting, to be talked over as a concern. He’s not sure the last time he had that. Maybe Glynco, when Winona would invite Art over for dinner sometimes.

“We didn’t get that far,” Boyd says, matching Ava’s tone, tinging it with that same puzzlement from the last time they spoke. “He was... in a hurry.”

“What,” Raylan croaks, turning to look at Boyd. “What the fuck does ‘amenable’ mean, right here?”

Boyd’s eyes are clear, his expression guileless. He’s wearing a white dress shirt and dark gray trousers. He’s got a suit jacket thrown over his arm and a dark blue tie wrapped around his fingers like it’s one half of a pair of brass knuckles. Raylan wonders for a second where he’s just come from, then listens to him say, “It means I am amenable to you fucking my wife, Raylan. Really, I don’t mind.”

Raylan stares at him, finally able to pull away from Ava, stand up straight, and reply, ““Boyd, that makes no sense. Are you looking at this woman? Have you seen her?”

“I have.”

“Then why would you be okay with that?” Raylan can’t wrap his head around it and Ava’s foot is still on his leg, her hands reaching again for his hips. He doesn’t really want to move away.

Boyd squints, just for a moment, at Raylan and he leans back, as if needing to settle the weight of a realization onto his shoulders. “Did you come here and do this because you thought I would be upset? Is that what you wanted from this?”

Raylan doesn’t know, so he doesn’t say. He wants something and he can’t stop thinking about how he couldn’t stop his mind running on Boyd, even as he was a hair’s breadth away from screwing the man’s wife. He works his jaw again, grinding his molars hard enough he thinks Ava might be able to hear.

“Raylan,” Boyd says after a tense moment, defeat edging into his tone, “I’m afraid I’m gonna have to admit I do not know what it is that’s going on in that head of yours. After what happened in Harlan, before you left and--”

“What do you mean by that?” Raylan cuts in fast. This whole time, they’d been acting so strange, like he’d done something to them, all that time ago. But whenever he tries to think about it, he comes up with nothing. “What do you mean what happened?”

Boyd smirks and it’s bitter and almost hateful. “Thought you wanted to talk around it ‘til we finally left town. But I guess you were just biding your time, waiting for me to put it on the table. Well, that’s fine, Raylan, you can be sure I have more courage in these matters than you do.”

“Boyd, what are you talking about?” He backs away from Ava, feeling like this just turned into a fight he hadn’t meant to start.

Boyd licks his lips and looks Raylan up and down, why, he can’t say. There’s something to the way he’s looking, something dark and wanting, but almost like he’s saying goodbye. “My wife,” he begins, nodding at Ava, “she’s got this idea in her head that you and I loved each other, Raylan. Back in Harlan, all those years ago.”

Raylan’s awareness snaps into sharp focus, and it’s only on Boyd, on his carefully removed expression, his thinned, nearly frowning, lips, on the way he’s standing like all he wants is to back away from this. But they both know, neither of them are that kind of man. Raylan’s mouth is dry and he’s wracking his brain, or trying to, if it didn’t hurt so bad. “Why... why would she think that?”

The look on Boyd’s face, Raylan thinks, remembering a time when they could read each other’s faces like an open book, says, _didn’t you_? And Ava replies, “Because I saw you that night. On the holler road, Raylan. I saw Boyd kiss you.”

Something inside Raylan seizes up at her words. His heart is pounding, blood rushing up to some empty space behind his eyes, pressing close and hard enough to hurt, instantaneous and sharp. “You saw him do what?” he asks, but it doesn’t sound like his voice. He’s thinking he’s pretty sure that didn’t happen, but then again, his thoughts don’t seem to be very ordered just now.

Ava’s brows crease at his bewildered expression, at the pain in his features, so Raylan turns to Boyd who is breathing just as hard as he is. “You... what?”

Boyd’s eyes are wide and something like sadness is filling them up, he backs up against the wall, near the doorway, holding his hand out, as if to catch it before he falls. “Oh, Raylan,” Boyd says and there is dark despair crowding his words, making them sound thick and heavy.

Raylan looks between them again, seeing that Ava seems to be about to cry, her hands up around her mouth. Boyd’s sort of rocking the top half of his body as he leans against the doorway, as though he can’t quite catch his breath, but he stills the longer Raylan looks at him.

“Tell me you’re lying, Raylan,” he demands in a weak voice. “Tell me you remember that night. I would-- I would much rather this was some petty revenge for whatever hurt than-- Please, just tell me you remember.”

When he says nothing, just keeps staring at Boyd, blinking rapidly and feeling the world spinning fast, unravelling around him, Boyd says, after letting loose a gasping breath, “Raylan, I’m sorry. I’m so-- this is all my fault.”

“I don’t...” Raylan begins, feeling like he should say something. He doesn’t understand at all. He pauses for breath and starts again. His head is pounding to the same rhythm as his heart and it’s fast and he can’t think past running away. He reaches for his hat, but sort of misses it all together and decides he doesn’t need it anyway. “I need to--”

“You’re thinking of leaving, Raylan, I can tell. Don’t. Just...let me think for a minute,” Boyd says quietly. 

Raylan rocks back on his heels, because he really was ready to walk out the door. But it seems like a reasonable request, until he thinks about how terrible he feels, how he just wants to get out of there. He blinks at Boyd and the bourbon or the pain has loosened his tongue because he can’t hold back from saying, “My head hurts, Boyd. I want to-- just let me go home.” He bites back a please, remembering at the last moment that Boyd really isn’t holding him there. 

Then, he thinks of home, where he wants to go, blinking rapidly, his mind shifting to Harlan for some reason, to Arlo’s house and Arlo on the porch with--

He puts his hand out to the counter, to steady himself, and he catches Ava staring at him, eyes wide with worry. He pushes off of it forcefully, determined to get past Boyd, but the man intercepts him, only stepping inches away from the wall, pushing back against Raylan and holding onto his arms, as if for dear life. They haven’t been this close since--

“Your head, Raylan,” Boyd says quietly, holding his arm in a vice grip, one hand traveling up to brace the back of his neck like he can gather all the hurt right there, and then the rest of it would go away. Raylan wishes it could work like that. “Was it hurting that day? The last one at the mine? You said you weren’t feeling well. That you thought you didn’t do it right.”

Raylan finds his body doesn’t want to fight Boyd’s grip, no matter how hard his mind is panicking. He stares at Boyd, bewildered. “I don’t know why I said that. Boyd, I-I can’t, _please_ ,” he tries again, and there’s desperation there, in the way his voice cracks, but he doesn’t even know what he’s asking. 

Boyd meets his eyes and they’re so sad, but there’s an edge of anger in them that wasn’t there before. He raises his other hand, the one that’s not at Raylan’s neck, and draw a line with his index finger across the outer edge of Raylan’s brow. He says, “I remember you had a bruise here, big and purple, that morning. You always had those. I didn’t think anything about it, Raylan. I thought--” Boyd closes his eyes, tight for a second, like he wants to shut it out, then opens them again and asks, “Did he--Raylan, did he knock it clean out of your head?”

Raylan is the one now, who is holding on to Boyd’s arms. He’s gripping hard, because he thinks his legs might collapse out from underneath him. He shakes his head. “I don’t kn--don’t remember, Boyd.” 

Being this close to him, feels familiar in a way that’s both comforting and disturbing. He leans into Boyd, who pulls him close, pressing their foreheads together. Raylan’s breath hitches in his dry throat and Boyd’s palm across his cheek prompts him to open his eyes again.

“It’s all right, Raylan,” Boyd says and hushes him when he tries to protest. Looking into his eyes from so near, it’s disorienting. His are the same, brown with startling flecks of green, warm, and surprisingly true.

The truth in them pulls Raylan back and he thinks, what a mistake he’d made coming here, how if anyone ever found out--

“Boyd, I have to go,” he says, with no certainty in his tone and not really trying to pull away.

“You think you’re gonna drive right now, Raylan?” Boyd asks, like it’s almost funny. “You can barely stand.”

Raylan hears Ava shift from her perch behind him, her bare feet padding softly against the fine tiled floors. “Baby, maybe we should all take a seat on the sofa or somethin’, okay? Let’s just all take a minute.” Her hand, smaller and gentler than Boyd’s, comes around his arm, steady and supportive. “That sound all right, Raylan?”

He only closes his eyes in answer and when they move, he goes with them.

Somehow he ends up on their oversized, pastel sofa with his head in Ava’s lap. Boyd settles himself on the floor very near Raylan’s head and laces their fingers together, like it’s something they’ve always done. Raylan doesn’t think it is.

His fingers brace tight against Boyd’s wedding ring and he looks down at it and frowns. He says, hearing his voice come too slow, too soft, “Ava asked me if I was surprised you’d marry a woman.”

Boyd glances up at his wife. “Did she?”

Raylan nods and squeezes at the ring, tightening their fingers in the process. “I was,” he admits. “I was surprised. But I didn’t know why.” Ava’s hands are carding through his hair and he closes his eyes to it, unable to look at Boyd’s sorrowful face any longer. He feels like he remembers him looking just that way, on the day Raylan left him--he hadn’t known why. “Mm sorry,” he mumbles.

“Don’t be,” Boyd tells him, laying his head down next to Raylan, his forehead brushing Raylan’s shoulder. “None of this was your fault.” 

“I ‘member,” he pauses, thinking hard, mind flashing through all the things he’d only caught glimpses of and hadn’t known what to do with since Boyd arrived in Miami. “I told you to run away.”

Boyd makes a noise like a sigh that wanted to be a sob. “I listened,” he says in a strangled voice.

“Boys,” Ava’s voice cuts through them both. Boyd lifts his head and looks at her as she says, “It ain’t gonna do anyone any good now.” She lifts a hand to cup Boyd’s cheek and he smiles at her, like there’s a decade of gratitude bursting up behind his eyes. She traces her fingers softly along Raylan’s jawline and tells them gently, like a prayer, “Ain’t no guilt, ain’t no blame. You were babies, boys, and sure it’s sad, but we’re gonna get past it.”

Raylan frowns and turns his face to meet Boyd’s eyes. Boyd raises his brows. “Are we?” Raylan asks him.

Before Boyd can answer, Raylan disentangles their hands, and sits up, feeling steadier, though his head is still pounding. He feels himself closing up, shutting down. He doesn’t want to, but the only thing that’s running through his mind is that he’s point on them, he’s in charge of the files for all Gio’s associates, he’s got to tell Dan about this.

“Raylan--” Boyd starts to say, but Raylan swings his legs to the floor, making him swallow his words and move out of the way. 

Raylan stands, mercifully steady on his feet, and looks Boyd hard in the eye. “I really have to go, son,” he says. “It’s not--I’m not,” he doesn’t know how to say it. “I need to get off your case. Before...before we talk again.”

Boyd’s brows shoot to his hairline and he looks at an utter loss, his hand dropping fast from where he’d been reaching for Raylan’s arm. Ava stands quickly and puts herself next to him, drawing her arm through his. “If that’s what you need, honey,” she says. “You let us know, all right?”

Raylan smiles and leans forward, capturing her lips swiftly with his, and holding fast for just a moment, because he wants to, wants them, because it feels safer than touching Boyd again.

She lets him go when he pulls away. He remembers to get his hat from the kitchen before he slips out the door.

 

Raylan goes straight to Dan’s office, head still aching, splitting open really, as he’s wracking it trying to figure out how to explain why he needs off the Crowder file. Why he should hand it to someone else and keep his dirtied nose firmly in Gio’s affairs. No one knows Gio’s shit like Raylan does. He can’t give that up. He just needs off the Crowders.

When he parks at the office he has to lean out of the car, spitting on the pavement, fighting down nausea. He pulls himself from the vehicle eventually, seeing Karen going to her car as he locks his door.

She’s looking at him strangely. “You look like shit,” she tells him. “What’d she do to you?”

Raylan shakes his head and brushes past her without answering.

He goes up to Dan’s office, looks in, and enters when Dan waves him in, just hanging up the phone. “Man, Raylan, you look like shit.”

Raylan grimaces and takes off his hat. “Yeah, I heard.” He sits down in a chair before Dan even invites him to and rubs a hand across his eyes.

“Karen said you took Mrs. Crowder back to her place. Weird coincidence about her vehicle, huh?” Dan’s looking at him funny.

Raylan’s sure Dan has at least some idea of what he’s about to say, but knows that doesn’t mean it can go unsaid. “Dan, I need off the Crowder thing.”

“Why?”

Raylan’s mouth twists, readying for a half truth. “You remember I said I knew Crowder, right?”

“I do. Karen also told me today you said you’ve known the missus since she was in pigtails. Care to tell me why you didn’t mention that before?”

Raylan puts his head in his hands, almost involuntarily, biting back a groan.

“Jesus, Raylan, are you okay?” There’s real concern in Dan’s voice.

“I just--” Raylan struggles for speech. “I got a migraine or somethin’, Dan.” He forces himself to look back up.

“Go home, Raylan.”

“I need off the Crowders first,” he says through his teeth. “I didn’t say anything about Ava because I didn’t think it mattered. It was a long time ago. But, I...found out today that it does. I’m too close to this, Dan. You have to put someone else on it.”

“You want off the Crowders, you want off Gio, too. At least right now,” Dan says, then sighs. “And by the look of you, I might want you out of the field entirely.”

“Dan--” Raylan’s ready to fight him on both counts.

Dan rolls his eyes and holds a hand up, cutting in, “I won’t take you off the whole damn thing, that’s crazy, the amount of time you put into this. But, Raylan, if we think Gio is going to get Crowder to move a man for him, Karen’s gonna take point on the whole show, all right? I won’t have a pissing match during a priority investigation and I won’t have your personal bullshit fucking it up either.”

“Fine,” Raylan breathes out in a rush of air. He thinks he might pass out he’s so relieved.

“And I want you to take tomorrow and the weekend. Whatever is going on here right now looks like an actual risk to your health. Get some fucking rest, Deputy.” Dan turns away from him and picks up his phone. “Can you get yourself out of here or do you need an ambulance?” 

“I’ll be fine,” Raylan manages and stands, setting his hat back on his head.

“You goddamn cowboy,” Dan scoffs. “Go see a doctor, all right?”

Raylan thinks a therapist might be more in order, but knows he won’t go see one of those either.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raylan has to stay away from Boyd and Ava and that doesn't work either.

Raylan buys a burner phone and already feels like a criminal. 

He gets Ava’s number off the forms she filled out to get her car out of impound. Karen got a copy, to double check some facts Raylan had already gathered, and left the file open on her desk for some reason.

He sends them a message. He’s not good at cryptic, but he needs to at least try to be clandestine, so he types out, _For a good time. One time only. In Miami._ followed by the address of a hotel just off the strip.

He’s not certain it will be a good time for anyone, but he wants to get at least half an idea across, and he’s sure they will know solicitations like that don’t just come to unlisted numbers, and are rarely sent by phones with a local area code.

A few minutes later, he gets a text back, _When?_ and answers, _tonight_.

He gets no response after that. He goes to the hotel early, pays--far too much--for the room, then texts the number to them and goes up to wait.

The room he gets is a suite of some kind, with a bedroom and living area separated by a thin, dark wood-panelled, sliding door. Raylan lays himself on the faux leather couch, settles his hat low on his brow, just over his eyes, and closes them.

He’s not sure if he meant to fall asleep, but he certainly doesn’t mean to dream about Harlan. 

He dreams he and Boyd are on the holler road, walking up toward his house, but walking funny, like they’re doing a little dance, brushing shoulders and criss-crossing over each other’s footsteps, as though they’re revolving. Boyd’s got a smile on his face like he’s never been happier, and his eyes are light and free. Raylan feels a smile on his own face, and something wondrous and dangerous shoots and fizzles like a sparkler up his arm when he brushes his fingers against Boyd’s hand.

Boyd’s grinning at him and he thinks they’ll embrace, they’ll kiss again, but now the house is in view and there’s something sinking like a stone in Raylan’s belly. Arlo is there and--

Raylan wakes with a start. Boyd is looking down at him, hand stretched out like he was about to shake him, and something hidden in his eyes reminds Raylan of the look from his dream, from his memory.

“I still can’t remember the kiss,” he tells Boyd. He’s been trying all week. He’s gone to bed with a pounding headache every night.

Boyd frowns. “You don’t look well, Raylan,” he says softly. He draws his hand even further away, and Raylan huffs a sigh, not liking it, wanting him close now that he remembers what it was like, after.

Raylan sits up on the couch. His hat has fallen off, but he doesn’t search for it. 

Ava comes around the other side of the coffee table and sits down on it, putting herself at eye level with him. She looks lovely, hair pulled half back, but curled nice at the ends. She’s wearing a sundress, a calico thing in a faded blue that looks old, but loved. Raylan thinks he knows where it came from and he smiles at her tentatively, a little sheepish still at his mistrust, his casual misjudgement.

He turns back to Boyd, looking up as he’s still standing. He reaches out and takes the hand that he wanted near him. He closes his eyes, the sense of muted longing, of fierce closeness threatening to overwhelm him and he wonders how Boyd could have stood it, for the months since they’d been here, for all the years in between. Boyd never had the luxury of forgetting.

Boyd lets him pull shamelessly at his fingers, tracing the curves of his knuckles and fingernails. He curls them gently, like a kiss, against Raylan’s own. “You must remember something, now,” Boyd says, breathless.

Raylan answers by taking Boyd’s fingers into his mouth.

Boyd groans and gets his other hand around the back of Raylan’s head, raking it through his hair and pulling him closer. Raylan sucks hard on Boyd’s fingers and moans around them. Boyd kneels swiftly and lifts Raylan’s head to look him in the eye, drawing his hand from Raylan’s slackened mouth and touching him softly at his cheek, then his brow. 

Boyd leans in close and says, “It was clumsy, darlin’. I didn’t know what I was about.” He smiles. “It’ll be like the first time for you then. Lucky boy.” 

Raylan’s lips are parted, he’s waiting for it, but before Boyd moves, he says, “It’s just gonna be the once, Boyd.”

Boyd blinks at him. “That’s what you said.”

“You’re all right with that?”

Boyd’s face crumples, his brows creasing, his mouth twisting like he’s tasted something bad. “We have to be. We’re not walking away from this, Raylan. I’m hurt you thought we might.”

Raylan is the one who moves now, pressing his lips to Boyd’s even as he’s finishing speaking the words. The kiss is, at first, slow and heated, reigniting long cold embers of something warm and real in Raylan’s chest. 

Then, Boyd surges forward, drawing his arms hard around Raylan and swift down his back, pulling him almost entirely off the couch by his waist. Raylan doesn’t know quite what to do with his hands, letting them rise to either side of Boyd’s face, then moving them down and across his shoulders as Boyd tilts his head to the side, opening his mouth wider to take in Raylan’s tongue.

That warm thing is filling Raylan up and he makes a noise like a whimper into Boyd’s mouth, clawing his fingers around the base of Boyd’s neck and pulling Boyd up and into his lap by the underside of his thigh. Boyd breaks the kiss, letting Raylan press forward fast and swift, once, twice more, little tastes of lips and tongue. 

“Okay, okay,” Boyd says smiling, keeping their faces near. His eyes are twinkling in the dim light of the room. The sun is going down. “Ava, baby, come here,” he says, holding out his hand for her. “We didn’t forget you.”

Ava’s eyes are wide. Her breath seems to be coming just as hard as theirs as Raylan smiles at her, feeling slightly dizzy, but so much better than the last time they were all together. She smiles back and runs her hand through his hair as she sits next to him. Boyd is still on his lap.

“You look a little better, honey,” she says softly, some laughter hidden in her voice. “You feelin’ better?”

“Yeah,” he answers and smiles wider now, stupidly. He twists a bit to lean over and kiss her. She accepts readily and pulls off her shoes to climb further onto the couch, to make herself flush with them both. When they break, he says, “You look real nice in that dress, Ava.”

She laughs and blushes and calls him sweet.

Boyd smiles against his ear and tells him, “You said just the right thing, darlin’.”

Raylan closes his eyes. He doesn’t think he could get enough of Boyd calling him that.

“Let’s go to the bedroom,” Ava says into his other ear. When he opens his eyes, he catches them looking at each other across him, excitement, arousal, and love all in their eyes.

They undress each other wordlessly, until Raylan gets his hands on the buttons of Boyd’s steel blue dress shirt and can’t help himself. “You look so good,” he says. “I can’t believe how good you look.”

Boyd smiles at him, leaning in to mouth at his neck. “You do all right,” he murmurs.

Ava scoff at them from the bed, stark naked and touching herself. “If you’re finished stroking each other’s egos, my lady parts need some attention, boys. They’re achin’ somethin’ fierce.”

Boyd smirks at her, wickedly. “Achin’ for what, baby?”

She arches her back and grins lazily at them both. “For someone’s mouth or cock, baby. You boys decide who gets to go.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Boyd murmurs and pushes Raylan forward.

Raylan’s naked now too and he catches Ava eyeing him appreciatively. He glances back at Boyd, who’s smiling at him like he’s doing something adorable. 

“You look like you got your hand caught in the cookie jar, darlin’,” Boyd says, moving in close behind him, catching his hands and walking him forward, pressed into his back. 

Raylan can feel Boyd’s growing hard on at his backside and he takes a breath, almost overwhelmed by the surprisingly arousing sensation. Boyd’s hands are loose around his wrists as he bends them both forward, guiding Raylan’s fingers to Ava’s warm pussy, to the full, softness of her breast.

Boyd’s breath ghosts over Raylan’s neck, across to his ear. “This is what we want, Raylan,” he says and Raylan dips his mouth low to taste her. 

She’s wet already, but he looks up, with his lips on her pussy, and smiles. He kisses his way from one thigh to the other and feels her muscles shiver under his thorough attention. Boyd is still warm at his back, but his hands have moved from his wrists, trailing up his arms and to his waist, touching lightly, teasingly. Raylan groans.

He rubs his fingers across Ava’s nipple and spreads her legs open wider with his other hand, sinking his face into her and beginning to lap, slow and long and wet, up her pussy. She arches into him, calls his name and he hears Boyd moan. He licks her long and heavy and she tastes wonderful, just like her kiss, but headier, darker and he feels Boyd’s hard on, still, at his back.

He’s tonguing circles around Ava’s clit, when Boyd’s hand reaches around to his aching cock and he moans into her. She grabs at his hair, legs already up around his shoulders and quaking. She comes with an inarticulate shout, bucking up into him and sighing for all three of them. 

Raylan surges forward then and captures her mouth with his. She reaches down, smiling with a blissful purpose and gets her hand around his cock with Boyd’s, who’s rutting into his backside like they’re fucking for real. Raylan thinks of that and goes right over, coming in a jetting spurt across their intertwined hands and her stomach and breasts.

He’s not sure what he says as he does it, but it must be good, because Boyd comes a moment later, collapsing across Raylan’s back and pushing them all, heavy and loose-limbed, onto the king-sized bed.

Raylan meets Ava’s eyes, which are still very wide, her pupils blown so they look almost black. She smiles at him, big and pleased and touches his face like she can’t believe he’s real. “Raylan,” she says, breathless and beautiful, “I loved you like a little girl ‘til this very moment.”

He smiles back, feeling giddy and loose. “Not the one where I had my face betwixt your legs?”

She laughs, moving in closer, and Raylan feels Boyd’s mouth on his neck. “I’m sure whatever moment, it was very adult, Raylan,” Boyd murmurs, drawing his fingers across Raylan’s thigh and making him shiver.

“Cut that out,” Raylan says, trying to shift away, but Boyd grabs at his knee and leverages himself even closer.

“No,” he whispers and begins to suck on the skin right behind Raylan’s left ear. 

Raylan’s mouth drops open and he watches a grin spread across Ava’s face. “That’s it baby,” she murmurs and Raylan’s eyes fall to her mouth. “You found the sweet spot.”

Boyd huffs a laughing breath across Raylan’s ear. He doesn’t let up and now Raylan really can’t think straight. He’s getting hard again, hasn’t been this hard this quick after fucking for a long time. Ava notices and meets his eyes. “You want to go again?”

Raylan blinks and forces words out of his mouth, though it’s damn difficult with Boyd’s tongue, rough like a cat, going over his skin, breathing like he’s the one who’s going to come again. He sounds drunk as he says, “Won’ take long.”

They laugh at him, together with the same soft chuckle, and Raylan’s cock gives a little jerk, overly sensitive, ready and waiting.

“Edge of the bed, baby,” Ava says and Boyd pushes Raylan in that direction while Ava goes on her knees on the floor. She spreads his legs open and licks a long line up his straining cock.

Raylan groans and presses back against Boyd, who’s still mouthing behind his ear. He raises a hand to rake through Boyd’s hair and mumbles vaguely, “Ain’t your tongue tired?”

“It’s impossible, Raylan,” Boyd says, very distinctly, as though he wants Raylan to pay attention, “for anything of mine to be tired of you.”

Raylan closes his eyes as Boyd goes back to his ear, wrapping hands strong across his torso and waist. He bucks his hips up into Ava’s face when she swallows him down and it’s a matter of seconds before he’s coming, rather violently, into her mouth. 

Boyd holds him through it and says, so soft Raylan almost can’t be sure, “Ain’t nothin’ you can do.”

Raylan turns then and presses his mouth, open and messy, into Boyd’s, trying to pull him around and close, but lacking the strength to do it. Boyd goes, though, gladly, and Ava climbs back onto the bed, all the way up to the headboard.

He’s spent and smiling and they lay him down in Ava’s lap again, while Boyd stretches himself out next to him. Ava sinks her hands into his hair again and Boyd starts talking softly about how good he was, how happy they are, and that’s all Raylan needs to slip into an exhausted doze.

Raylan dreams he is swimming and the lake is as big as an ocean. His arms and legs are tired, too heavy to buoy him. He feels himself sinking, he searches for Boyd.

There is a hand in his and now they’re together, on the holler road, outside Ava’s Gran’s house and Boyd is looking at him strangely. Time is slow moving and Raylan watches Boyd open his mouth, come at him so slow. He’s ready now. Boyd’s kiss is too hard at first, but it softens as they pull close, as they realize it’s something bigger, something expansive and amazing, something frightening too. Something to be lost.

Boyd smiles when he breaks away, but then he’s running, ripped from Raylan’s side and Raylan turns to see Arlo, tall and angry, looming like he did when Raylan was still small and he--

He jerks awake, trying to pull away, but there are strong, gentle hands on him, his shoulder, reaching for his hand. Boyd’s eyes are grave and he’s murmuring Raylan’s name, hushing him softly. “It’s all right,” he says.

Raylan can hear the sound of a shower running.

“Ava went to go rinse off,” Boyd tells him, drawing his hands up and down Raylan’s arms, soothingly. “You’re all right, darlin’.”

Raylan shakes his head. “Don’ call me that,” he mutters, rubbing at his face.

Boyd’s brows crease. “Why not?”

“It’s just the once, Boyd.” Raylan looks up at him, feeling despair crowd in around his eyes. He didn’t think he’d want it again as much as this. He had no fucking idea. “It has to be,” he whispers. “Don’t-don’t torture yourself.”

Boyd smiles at him sadly. “Raylan, I know this is very new for you. This idea. But, you have to remember, darlin’,” he raises his hands to Raylan’s face, making him look him in the eyes. “I had four years to torture myself about you and the only way I got through that was on account of Ava. We’re done with that. We’re happy with what you can give us. And we’ll be here, if ever you can offer any more, all right?”

Raylan blinks, hesitates, but tells him anyway, “Don’t do that to me, then, Boyd. Please. I-I want--I can’t, okay?”

Boyd doesn’t seem to have anything to say to that. He just hushes Raylan again and presses his lips to Raylan’s forehead very softly. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs after a while.

“I thought we were done with that,” Ava says from the door to the bathroom, wrapped in a thick white towel, hands on her hips.

Boyd sits up and Raylan, almost unconsciously curls further around him. He catches Boyd smiling down as he sets a hand down to smooth the hair from Raylan’s brow. “That wasn’t the other thing,” he tells his wife. “That was just me bein’ insensitive.”

Raylan’s smile twists uncomfortably. He feels weird being such a baby about the whole thing now.

“Stop that,” Boyd murmurs and Raylan looks up at him. “You’re fine.” When Raylan’s mouth drops open and his eyes widen just enough to reveal his bafflement, Boyd smiles and says, “You think just ‘cause we spent fifteen years apart, Raylan, that I don’t know you anymore?”

“I’d like to think I’ve changed a bit,” he says, sounding sore to his own ears.

Boyd’s smile goes lopsided. “You’re just the same to me,” he says and bends down to kiss him again, just softly.

“‘Cept for the badge,” he says and immediately regrets it as Boyd winces and looks away.

“I suppose,” Boyd replies and Ava comes near. She stands next to the bed and wraps her arms around his head, pressing his cheek to her stomach. He closes his eyes, slowly, like he’s in pain, but stands in a moment and goes to take a shower himself, waving off Raylan’s concerned look.

Ava sits herself down where Boyd had been, and Raylan looks up at her. “I’d like to ask you to mind your tongue about such things, Raylan,” she says quietly. “I understand your point of view, but I want you to know, Boyd and I, we’ve made something quite large out of scraps and ruins that were once very little. We’re proud of it and each other.”

“Ava--” He tries, already sorry.

She shakes her head and he closes his mouth. “I also want you to understand that Boyd would throw it all away for you. And I would let him. But, I dearly hope that you won’t ask him to.”

“I didn’t,” Raylan manages, reeling from the shock of her words. “I didn’t think to, Ava--I wouldn’t.” He can respect what they’ve done--he always had a healthy respect for Bo, it wouldn’t have been prudent not to. He can admire them for making Harlan so much more than it used to be.

But it isn’t going to change anything.

Raylan sits up and turns away from her, putting his head into his hands. He hears Boyd turn off the water and it’s a minute before he hears his soft footfalls come around the bed. 

Boyd kneels in front of him, looking up worriedly. “Your head hurt again?”

Raylan shakes his head. He pulls Boyd in for another kiss, too long, too sweet. When he pulls back he tells him, “My dream was about the holler road.”

“Was it?”

“It was beautiful, Boyd,” he says, though his smile’s fading. “Then it wasn’t.”

“Oh, Raylan.” Boyd tries to pull him close again, but Raylan doesn’t let him.

He holds himself very still and looks Boyd in the eyes gravely as he says, “I think you should go. I don’t want to say goodbye.”

Raylan wishes Boyd didn’t look as though he’d just plunged something into his heart. He watches Boyd swallow that pain and try to smile at him, as though he understands. Maybe he does. “All right, Raylan.”

They collect their things and dress quietly. Raylan tries not to look at them, but he can’t help it, and they smile at him softly and touch his face when they pass him, reaching down for a sock, or a shoe, and the last time, Raylan thinks, just because Boyd wanted to.

They’re standing in the doorway to the living area, side by side, when Raylan looks up at them for the last time. Ava’s got her hands on Boyd’s arm. “You know where to find us, Raylan. Here and there, if you need to,” she says.

“I do,” he says, looking at Boyd and wishing for something. “Ain’t nothin’ we can do, Boyd.”

Boyd sighs and Ava presses her lips to his cheek. “There likely isn’t,” he says and turns them towards the door.

Raylan falls back on the bed and stares at the ceiling for a while before he gets up, cleans off, and get himself the hell out of there.

He leaves the money they left to cover the room on the coffee table for the maids.

 

Karen tells him two weeks later, they packed up and left days ahead of schedule. She says, if Gio wanted them to take his man with them, they missed the window. “Must’ve had him pull something else out for a favor,” Raylan murmurs to himself. All Gio’s files are back on his desk.

A year later, he chases Roland Pike, a former money launderer for Gio with a price on his head, through Florida, the panhandle, and across the gulf. He gets his hands on Pike in Brownsville, Texas, but loses him again, like an asshole, and has to fly to fucking Nicaragua on the slimmest of leads.

He’s speaking in broken Spanish in the heat of one of the towns near the jungle, holding up a picture of Pike, trying to figure out where the fuck to go, when a Range Rover pulls up behind him and he gets unceremoniously shoved in the back seat and knocked out by a pistol whip. 

He should have known it would be Tommy Bucks after Pike. The Miami gun thug seems to be in his element, dragging Raylan and an unarmed, uninvolved, local through the Nicaraguan jungle, escorted by three, stone-faced guys with uzis, and talking non-stop about such utter shit, Raylan can hardly believe it. Raylan tries to call him on it only once, because Bucks stops them in the middle of the narrow trail that they’re on to throw out a brutal left hook into the face of the innocent man, who, from what Raylan can gather, seems to be only a coconut farmer.

They end up at a plantation, a coconut one, in fact, and Bucks orders them, Raylan and the farmer, each to be tied to a tree. Raylan tells Bucks everything he knows about Roland Pike. He tells him about Brownsville and the fucking ice cream and the bathroom window, everything the asshole ever said or did that Raylan knows about, but Bucks doesn’t let up on the poor man and Raylan can’t get himself loose. Even if he could, those uzis would tear them both apart before he got his hands around Tommy’s neck.

Raylan watches, finds himself pleading, when Bucks shoves that stick of dynamite into the man’s mouth. He told him, he told him everything already, goddammit, he did.

Bucks’ face is a terror of cold calculation, of scant feelings and small amusement. He thinks it’s fucking funny when he blows that man’s head apart. Raylan watches, eyes wide, ears ringing for hours afterwards. Tommy throws his cigarette, the one he used to light the fuse, down at Raylan’s feet and leaves him for dead, covered in an innocent, nameless man’s brains and blood.

He’s barely conscious, letting his mind wander through regret after bitter regret, when he feels fingers at his bound hands, untying them, letting him slip down to the ground. He moans some nonsense, stringing words together that he can’t remember later, and a man’s voice shushes him, says, “Don’t worry.”

“Boyd?” he mumbles and the man says, “Sent me to look for you.”

Raylan’s not sure for a long time if he remembers it right.

He wakes in a convent hospital and takes a month to get back to Miami.

Six months later, he’s shot Tommy Bucks over a lunch of crab cakes and resentment.

 

“Dan, I can’t go back to Kentucky,” Raylan says a day later when Dan tells him he has to.

“There’s nowhere else to put you, Raylan, and you can’t stay here now. For one, Gio’s gonna have every man he can get on your ass. You’ll be dead inside a week if you don’t get the fuck out of Florida.” Dan is rightfully, dutifully pissed.

“Shit,” Raylan says, rubbing at his eyes.

“Art Mullen needs you in Lexington, Raylan. They got a spot open and could really use someone who knows the territory.”

Raylan knows Dan remembers his personal shit about the Crowders. Maybe he thinks Art will keep him off it, maybe he doesn’t realize how big they are in Eastern Kentucky, how tight knit things can be. There is no way Raylan can operate in that area and not tangle with them.

He lets the Marshal Service pay for his plane ticket anyway. He makes a quick stop at the Courthouse, has a short, tense conversation, signs some papers, and then drives himself to Harlan.

He calls Helen from the road. This time she doesn’t realize it’s him right away, he can tell by the way she says, “Hello.”

“Where do they live?” he asks without preamble.

“Raylan? Jesus, where are you?” There’s confusion in her voice, worry in her tone already.

“Half hour out, maybe,” he says. “Tell me where they live, Helen.”

“No,” she says, stubbornly. “They ain’t none of your concern, Raylan.”

He laughs, a little desperately. “You think I’m comin’ there to arrest them? You think I want to do them harm?”

There’s a pause before Helen returns, “Well, hell, I don’t know, Raylan. What are you doin’ there, if not to do your job?”

“Just fuckin’ tell me, Helen,” he grinds out, not wanting to get into it with her at that moment.

She does.

 

When they’re in Harlan, they live in a little house they must have bought just after they were married and then renovated several times over the subsequent years.

Raylan thinks he remembers the house as one owned by a family had a girl both he and Boyd went to school with. The family name was Greeley, though the girl’s name escapes Raylan as he makes his way up the long drive to the two storey house.

It’s got a fresh coat of paint on the siding, a nice clean yellow, and new looking windows all through. Not usual in Harlan, or the Harlan Raylan remembers, at least. He counts at least three guns on him, from far vantage points, as he parks and exits his vehicle. He’s sure that the only reason he hasn’t been shot at yet are the government plates on the car he borrowed from Art in Lexington.

He raises his hands and walks to the door. He’s a little surprised he has to knock.

It’s Ava that answers the door, wearing a simple, bright, red sweater, a pair of slim jeans, and a fake as hell smile that quickly fades as she realizes who it is that’s come to her door.

“Raylan,” she breathes, and doesn’t move a muscle. “Oh my God.”

Raylan’s got an arm against the doorframe and the other held away from his body. He would move forward to touch her, but he’s still a little worried about the barrels at his back. “Hey, Ava,” he says with a smile.

“Oh my God,” she says again and steps forward to kiss him soundly on the lips. He can’t stop his hand from slipping down to her waist.

There’s a shot fired behind him, he’s fairly sure just as a warning, but he can’t help the way he jerks to the right, looking for cover, his hand going to his side arm that’s no longer there.

“Oh, Jesus,” Ava growls and reaches for a slim phone from her back pocket, flipping it open and dialing a number on speed dial as she pulls Raylan into the house and slams the door behind them. “Lay off,” she says into it. “He’s fine.” She waits half a beat and says, “No, emergencies only, ‘til you hear from us.” She hangs up the phone and calls, presumably up the stairs, though she’s got her eyes steady on Raylan with a slowly spreading grin on her face, “Boyd, you best get down here.”

“You got yourselves a little routine here for the lawmen, huh?” he asks quietly, not wanting to spoil the surprise for Boyd, whose strides he hears on the floor above their heads.

The house is lovely inside, tastefully decorated in somewhat muted fall colors and splashes of old, down-home prints and crown molding. It’s classy, like they are, and Raylan loves it.

Ava leans forward into him, taking his hands in hers. She answers, “Makes things go smoother, most of the time.” Then she turns and looks up the stairs and Raylan’s eyes follow hers to the top step, where Boyd stands frozen.

“Hey, Boyd,” Raylan says and Ava lets his hands go. He takes one step forward. He thinks about taking his hat off, but instead just tips the brim up slightly, waiting with an open face for Boyd to say something.

“I see that hat,” Boyd says, taking each step slowly down. “But I don’t see no badge or no gun, Raylan.”

Raylan let’s his lip quirk, though he’s still feeling a little bit raw about it, and says, “That’s ‘cause I left them in Lexington four hours ago, when I resigned from the Marshals.”

“Oh, shit,” Ava blurts from behind him as Boyd’s face breaks into a surprised grin. “What?” Boyd says, finally at the foot of the stairs, just three steps away from Raylan.

“You heard about Tommy Bucks?” It was only two days before, but Raylan was positive if Boyd was still working with Gio, he would have heard about it.

“Don’t need to be a man in my position to hear about that, Raylan, it was on the goddamn TV.” He frowns now, concerned. “Didn’t say, but we thought it might be you. Then we heard Gio put a price on your head.”

“How high?”

Ava comes around to his other side now, putting her hands on her hips. “Well, what the hell does it matter now, Raylan? You think we’re gonna turn you over to him?”

He smiles. “No.”

Boyd slips a hand into the pocket of his dark jeans, just below the seam of the obviously well-made, wool vest that he’s wearing under a cotton shirt. He cocks his hip and tilts his head at Raylan and says, “Tell us, darlin’.”

Raylan has to blink something back when he hears that word on Boyd’s lips. He says, “You can imagine they weren’t happy about the way Bucks went. They needed me out of Miami and Lexington was the only place taking. I let ‘em fly me up here, then gave Art Mullen my resignation as soon as I came in. It’s not much of a story.”

“And then you came here,” Boyd says slowly.

Raylan shrugs. For some reason, he looks down. “I had Helen tell me where you were.”

“That woman really loves you, honey,” Ava tells him. “She didn’t know what you were doin’. She gave that to you anyway, knowing the consequences.” Raylan looks at her hard and she adds, “They’re the same for everybody.”

Raylan might have said something else, but he’s distracted as Boyd takes another step forward. Raylan could reach out and touch him now, but there’s something curious in Boyd’s eyes, a distant warning. “What are you doing here, though, Raylan?”

Raylan understands why Boyd wants this, wants to hear it, so he takes a moment to say it right. “I can’t be what I am in Miami anymore, Boyd. They tell me I can’t do it anywhere but here, but if I have to come back, it for damn sure won’t be as a Marshal. I can’t do that to you--to us. I don’t want to.”

“What are you gonna do, then, Raylan?” Ava asks softly.

He spreads his hands. “I was hopin’ you could tell me.”

“What are you willing to do?” Boyd asks, reaching now for his shooting arm, wrapping a strong hand around it, just above the elbow.

Raylan closes his eyes, lets go of something, and opens them again to meet Boyd’s. “I just shot a man in something very like cold blood, Boyd. I am willing to do many things, more things for you than I might like to admit.”

“You shot Tommy Bucks, Raylan. The man who dragged you through the Nicaraguan jungle and left you there for dead.” His hand is very tight around Raylan’s arm.

Raylan feels his lip curl. He forces himself not to pull away. “I don’t need no revenge to put a bullet in a man, son. I’ll do what you want, if you ask, because I want to, because you’re the one asking.”

Boyd doesn’t speak for a moment and his eyes are staring so intently into Raylan’s, searching for something, that he feels compelled to speak again. “This isn’t a sacrifice, Boyd. This isn’t the fall of a desperate man. It’s a decision. Plain and simple. Because the alternative is something I can’t even contemplate. You want me on your tail? You want me on the opposite side of a barrel?”

He feels Ava press up behind him now, wrapping her arms around his middle and laying her cheek flush against his back. He reaches across his chest to lay his free hand across hers.

Boyd blinks. “No, darlin’,” he whispers, sliding a hand around the back of Raylan’s neck and pulling him in. 

As their lips meet, Boyd lets go of Raylan’s arm and pulls Ava forward. When they break apart, far too soon in Raylan’s opinion, she surges forward, climbing up on him fast enough he can’t do anything but catch her by the legs and hold her up. She tastes sweet and tangy, like lemonade. She breathes hard into his mouth because Boyd’s lips are at her ear, moving slow down her neck. 

When Raylan turns back to Boyd, meeting his lips again with a fervor that wasn’t quite there before, he feels Ava’s smile against the skin just behind his ear. 

“We’re so glad you’re home, Raylan,” she says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of Part 2. The entire series is three parts and has been completed. it will be posted ~about~ once a week (or twice--who am I kidding?) until complete. Thanks must go to a cadre of beta readers that I have thrust this story upon in the YEAR since I began it: rillalicious, thornfield girl, engage_protocol, and scioscribe. Thank you, ladies! <3


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